Outline

Background: The development of rigorous, evidence-based clinical practice guidelines is a costly, resource-intensive and time-consuming effort. In addition, the movement toward a model of globalization of the evidence and localization of adoption and implementation suggests the need for collaborative, international development of guidelines by multiple stakeholder groups, including medical professional societies, government agencies, health care delivery organizations, patient-interest groups and others. Such multidisciplinary collaboratives have the potential to improve the rigor and transparency of evidence-based guideline development, standardize methods and processes, set priorities for selection of clinical topics of interest to clinicians and patients, reduce duplication of efforts, provide a shared funding source for evidence generation, more effectively manage conflicts of interest, and facilitate implementation and performance measurement. Developing effective international collaborations, however, requires a transformation in current thinking and structural approaches to guideline development.

Objectives/Goals: To highlight recent international guideline collaboration efforts and discuss barriers, opportunities, and frameworks for successful collaborative guideline development across national and international boundaries.